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[20]
In truth, they argued in this
manner—the most honourable men spoke to one another and to me in this
manner—that there were now manifestly and undeniably no courts of justice
at all. The very criminal who the day before thought that he was already condemned,
is acquitted now that his defender has been made consul. What are we to think then?
Will it avail nothing that all Sicily, all
the Sicilians, that all the merchants who have business in that country, that all
public and private documents are now at Rome? Nothing, if the consul elect wills it otherwise. What! will not
the judges be influenced by the accusation, by the evidence, by the universal
opinion of the Roman people? No. Everything will be governed by the power and
authority of one man.

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